Baby sleep cycles

Thursday, April 5, 2012

I recently bought the book 'French Children
Don't throw food' by Pamela Druckerman (the American title is the much more pleasant ‘Bringing up
Bebe’). While it does seem a little too early to be reading a book about
raising a child, the beginning of the book is actually about pregnancy &
birth and then there is a chapter about sleep.

This chapter is fantastic. It talks about how
babies have sleep cycles & they'll often wake between cycles & seem
unsettled. If you leave them for a bit (just pause & observe) to see
whether they really have woken up or not. If their crying escalates or they don’t
close their eyes then pick them up but if you pick them up too early then you interrupt
their sleep cycle & they wont learn to sleep longer than 2 or so hours.

Babies make so much noise when they sleep,
grunting etc. It’s quite something & takes a bit of getting used to. For a
while you think they might be choking or something, but they’re fine. Anyway
this chapter spoke to me. Sometimes Lulu will scream three or four times, and
you think 'holy crap girl' & want to calm her down, but after the 4th time
she just goes back to sleep. It's amazing! Pause & observe, then intervene
if needed. Magic.

2 comments
:

Okay. I am buying this book. You are like the 4th mom I know to give it a good review. And the sleep cycle thing is so interesting! Alice will have these little squeaks and squeals as she is sleeping but they don't seem to last long and she quiets herself right down after.

I will use this tonight. Pause, observe, then intervene if needed. :-)